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Paisley Buddies prove how important their community Facebook group is throughout the extreme weather conditions

The people of Paisley have been showing various acts of kindness for others in their town by offering help and support throughout Scotland’s first ever severe red weather alert.

The ‘Beast from the East’ has caused school and workplaces around the country to be closed, all methods of public transport to be cancelled and drivers stranded for hours on motorways.

Despite the deep snow and dangerous roads, members of the ‘Paisley and Proud’ Facebook Group have been on hand to offer various methods of support for anyone in need.

(Photo credit Josh Magennis)

A useful list of supermarkets, chemists and other suppliers opened where listed on a post within the group for members to know where to go for essentials and to prevent dangerous wasted journeys to places which were closed.

Jennifer Skinnider, who owns a four wheel drive vehicle, provided lifts for various members of staff to the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) and went on bread and milk runs for residents in a Paisley sheltered house complex.

She said: “I picked up a guy from Renfrew who walked home after the birth of his baby girl in the very early hours of Thursday morning and was struggling to get back to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) to pick her and his partner up in the afternoon.”

She also drove a woman from Paisley to the QEUH as her daughter had been transferred from the RAH and was due to go into surgery as well as offering many people lifts along the way.

Jennifer provided lifts for a number of people.

Cathryn Thomson, who lives minutes away from the RAH, offered space for six to eight staff or parents with babies in the baby care unit to stay over in her house rather than sleeping in cars or chairs in the hospital.

She said: “I wanted to make sure that people who were working to save lives knew they had somewhere safe to go if they needed it.”

The Facebook group that has over 9,000 members is used daily to share memories, news, general information, and pictures of Paisley.

Gary Baldy, an administrator, said: “We already know that the help people give each other, the way everyone rallies round shows just how much the people of Paisley value their neighbours. This has ranged from people offering to go shopping for each other and driving people to their workplace and is something that Paisley people can be proud of.”

Paisley Fountain Gardens (Photo credit Nicole Haughie)

Hazey McIntyre witnessed an elderly man struggling to push a wheelchair through the snow on Neilston Road on Wednesday and posted in the group praising the anonymous young man who stopped to help even although he was heading the opposite way.

She said: “He wasn’t even going in the direction of the couple with the wheelchair but he just stopped and spoke to the man, then took over pushing the wheelchair. It was so bad it took the elderly man and the lad to move it at first.”

Hazey sharing the kind gesture she witnessed on Paisley and Proud group.

Scott Jones drove from his house in Johnstone to the Foxbar area of Paisley to deliver mother, Sarah McNeill, milk and eggs as her young daughter was ill and asleep.

Sarah did not want to wake the toddler and risk taking her out in the deep snow.

She posted on ‘Paisley and Proud’ asking if anyone would be willing to deliver her the items she and her daughter needed and Scott replied instantly.

He said: “I have a 4×4 and knew I would be okay to get to her. I have two 18 month old twin boys and had it been my partner looking for help and I was working away or whatever, I would like to think that someone in the community would help her out.”